Leader of MA Teachers' Assoc sells out his members step by step

Last year Paul Toner, the ostensible leader of the MA Teachers Association, surrendered his membership by capitulating without a whimper to the first step in the corporate blueprint to replace tenured and experienced teachers with a new generation of untrained neophytes... That first step in that process was to establish a teacher evaluation scheme based on student test scores, and to link job security pay to those test scores. Toner accomplished this feat without a vote by the rank and file--not even an opinion survey.

Now we find that President Toner has surrendered Massachusetts teachers once more in Step 2 of the corporate education deformers' plan to destroy teacher tenure, job security, and due process . From Barbara Gordon posted Saturday on Facebook:

This week the Massachusetts Teachers Association's Board of Directors voted to put forward legislation that will end the use of tenure and seniority as the primary factors to use in layoff situations. Instead, the primary criteria will be performance evaluations and "the best interests of the students" with seniority being used only for "tie-breakers."

This was a "legislative compromise" the MTA leadership worked out with educational terrorists Stand for Children, who had a ballot question that did the same thing and more, ready for the November election. The MTA leadership negotiated this compromise without input or approval from rank and file MTA members. Their position is that there is no way we could have beaten Stand on the ballot question so it was better to compromise and lose seniority rights and involuntary transfer rights than to fight and possibly lose those things and more.

There is no future for teachers, children, or parents in having Gates and Broad control the voices of teacher by buying off phony leaders like Paul Toner. If the teaching profession is to be saved for now and the future, teachers must take back their unions and reclaim the mission that made them a movement of solidarity among teachers, parents, and students. There is no other choice, and there is no greater calling.